LehighWeek Volume 12, Issue 28

              Congrats and adieu
Faculty retirees, 25-year
veterans to be honored
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Volume 12, Issue 28
LehighWeefc
The campus digest for innovation, news and events with SouthMountaineer
Lacrosse champions
Men seal Patriot League
title by beating Lafayette
See SouthMountaineer   8
April 28,1999
New campus computer
system purchased
A new campus-wide information system has been purchased from SCT (Systems &
Computer Technology
Corp.) to replace the
aging centralized administrative systems,
including the student,
payroll and financial
records systems. The
new system will be
web-based and will
have improved services
for students and faculty advisers, provide
information for executive decision-making,
and more capable tools and
systems to help faculty and
staff in their norma! activities.
Implementing the new systems will cost about $5 million,
which includes software, hardware and training. The money
will come from bond issues and
budgetary reallocations.
The university will install
new SCT systems in the student, alumni, human resource
and financial areas. The web-
based student system should
be completed by Fall 2000, the
others by Fall 2001.
The project will be known as
LEWIS, Lehigh's Enterprise-
Wide Information System.
Lewis is also the name of W.
Deming Lewis, who was president when the existing systems
were purchased more than 20
years ago.
Provost Nelson Markley,
Vice President Rhonda
Gross, and Don Bolle, interim vice provost for information resources, will serve as the
project executive committee
and oversee LEWIS' implementation.
Manny Pena, director of
Enterprise Systems, will be the
project leader and chair of the
LEWIS team. Other LEWIS
team members include
Sharon Basso, Bruce
Correll, Tim Foley, Roy
Gruver, Lorna Hunter, Dick
Sanders, Neal Simon, Jim
Tiefenbrunn, John Van
Ness, George White and Ron
Yoshida. The team will develop the project plan, assure
vendor compliance and monitor schedules.
The purchase is the result
of a selection process that began three years ago. Five vendors made presentations. Finalists were reviewed by two
teams, a student services team
and a human resources team.
The finalists were evaluated on
criteria which included cost,
ease of software installation,
rapid implementation, end-
user expertise, functionality,
web access, product design,
technology and vendor reliability.
Rites of
Spring
Honored guest
Richard R. Verma '90 (left) returned here
Sunday (April 25) to give the address at
Lehigh's 20th Honors Convocation.
A picnic at the
Farringtons
Greg and Jean Farrington invited Lehigh's
dean's scholars for a picnic (above) last weekend.
International jam
Global cuisine and culture were on display
(left) at the annual International Bazaar.
Paul Bartholomew
The Age of Information
What role will the university
play in the information age?
What effect will information
technology have on the university?
Those questions were discussed at "The Future of the
University in the Information
Age," the topic of the final inaugural event on April 21.
Steven Goldman, professor of philosophy, moderated
the 90-minute discussion.
President Gregory
Farrington; Gordon Beam,
professor of philosophy; Bruce
Fritchman, chairman of electrical engineering and computer science; Susan Sherer,
associate professor of business;
Stephen Bronack, assistant
professor of education; and Joe
Lucia of information resources
were panelists.
Beam said a university
should not focus on "the delivery and discovery of information to the degree [that] it de-
emphasizes the most astonishing, heady, creative work that
takes place in a university -
breaking up the frameworks of
questions, purposes and concepts that information as content presupposes."
Fritchman said he was unsure how the information revolution could help achieve "core
education goals," because, he
said, learning is about the process of thinking and being exposed to a wide-array of perspectives, not the quantity of information or the rapidity with
which it is accessed.
"It is not being simply exposed to the information that
results in learning, but it is
something magical that happens due to total immersion in
the material. I don't yet see
how the new technology is going to change that."
Farrington said the "core of
the university" would not
change, but that universities
should experiment.
"Technology does not fundamentally change people, but I
also believe that we ought to
experiment. To assume that
the new technology is not useful is as foolish as to assume
that it will solve all our problems."
Bronack raised concerns
about the authority of information received via the new technology.
-Phil Repash '97 '99G
Alcohol regs set for fall
New, tougher alcohol policies on
campus were announced April 21
by Pres. Greg Farrington and
will go into effect with
the fall semester. Presented to the campus in
January for feedback,
the proposals followed a
year of work by a task
force of students, staff
and community members.
The policy changes
emphasize four goals: to
expand the number of
non-alcohol       social
events; to increase individual accountability for
alcohol violations and
promote   responsible
student behavior; to establish clear expectations regarding alcohol
use and consistently enforce university alcohol policies; and to reduce alcohol abuse at football
tailgate parties.
"As both Lehigh's president
and the father of a college student," Farrington said, "I have a
special interest in this issue. I believe these efforts will foster a
healthier, safer living and learning environment for the entire
campus."
The new rules reach out to
parents as partners to change
student behavior. Lehigh will
notify parents when students are
found guilty of violating an alcohol policy. Individuals found
guilty of two serious alcohol violations will be suspended.
The university will sponsor a
new Friday night series until 2
a.m. in Lamberton Hall, and give
financial support to fraternities
and sororities holding non-alcohol parties. A second security
guard and trained bartenders
will be required at all parties,
with the cost of the additional
guard to fraternities phased-in
over two years.
The amount of alcohol allowed
at registered parties will be limited to one alcoholic drink per
hour for the number of 21-year-
olds attending. All parties with
alcohol are limited to a maximum of four hours. Hosts must
also provide food and non-alcoholic beverages. All non-alcoholic
beverages must be provided in
sealed, single serving containers
such as soft drink, iced tea, juice
or bottled water containers.
Tailgate policies are also being changed to reduce abusive
drinking and to match the policies for on-campus parties.
The policy changes are part, of
a comprehensive approach to the
reduction of alcohol abuse
funded by a five-year grant from
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The initiative, known as
Project IMPACT, seeks to reduce
alcohol abuse and its consequences, including violence, vandalism and academic disruption.
For more, see the web page at
www.lehigh.edu I student I
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